UK ‘brain drain’: Farage is playing both sides

When Nigel Farage appeared on a podcast last month, he predicted the UK was “going bust” and warned of a “brain drain” that is “very, very, very disturbing”. Perhaps he should alert the MP for Clacton – one Nigel Farage – who pocketed £40,000 to deliver a keynote speech in September for Nomad Capitalist – an organisation that encourages people to flee the UK for global tax havens.

Farage’s talk in Kuala Lumpur was one of at least nine trips abroad that the Reform UK leader has made since the general election – though it’s not clear why someone who calls himself a patriot should be so keen to work with an organisation that has called the UK “hell”.

His appearance on the podcast, hosted by Southbank Investment Research, threw this tension into stark relief. Farage warned that the UK is losing the “ambitious”, “the entrepreneurial” and “the highly qualified” and that they are “fleeing all over the world” as other cities have been “competing on tax”. But that’s exactly what Nomad Capitalist has been advising these groups of people to do.

The podcast marked a return for Farage to Southbank Investment Research, where he previously published a newsletter called Fortune and Freedom with an annual subscription of £199. It also came with a warning that the advice it gave was “general only and should not be relied upon by investors in making (or not making) specific investment decisions”.

This disclaimer may have played a vital role. For all its expertise, the company behind Southbank Investment Research has sustained heavy financial losses. But it has been propped up in recent years by large funding injections from its parent company based in Cyprus – another tax haven that comes highly recommended by Farage’s friends at Nomad Capitalist.

Reform UK did not respond to a request for comment.